Wednesday March 23, 2016

Winter Storm Warning

11:30pm

I went out about 10 minutes ago and found 6-7″. It isn’t snowing as hard and the flakes are a lot smaller, but we are still adding to the total. (11:45- I must have caught a lull, it is snowing heavily again, and with a little wind now.)

7:45pm

Greetings and welcome!

We are under a winter storm warning this evening. As of 7:45pm I had two inches down and it was snowing at a heavy rate. It started snowing after I got home at 5:30, so it is adding up at an inch an hour or a little more. The flakes are big, from pencil sized to not quite dime sized. When I grabbed a handful it packed, but not as much as it could have.

There are blizzard warnings for Door Co and southwest to the counties around Lake Winnebago. The wind will add to the heavy snow, with gusts over 40mph, making visibility almost zero.

There was no wind to speak of when I went outside at 7:45. the snow was falling straight down or at a little bit of an angle. At the rate that it was falling it would be difficult travel. Add in a stiff wind and it would be very difficult to see the end of the hood.

The wind is a concern with heavy snow on the trees. Having trees or branches break under the snow and wind load is a possibility. That in turn could take down power lines.

Right now the storm is ‘training’, with wave after wave of precip following west to east like train cars on a track. On the radar it looks like a river going west to east.

The last big storm pinwheeled a line of intense snow through the area from south to north and was done in a few hours. This one is just a river of moisture over one path.

The northern edge of the snow on the radar is right about at the Florence Co Line. The southern line is at about Sheboygan, and it has stayed there for a couple of hours. That tells me that the storm isn’t moving much. At that point we could see some pretty good snow totals in the areas that do get hit. We are only about 30 or 40 miles from the north boundary of the snow, but for now we are in the river.

There is a bountiful supply of moisture, enough cold air, and like all of the best spring snow storms, a secondary area of low pressure with more moisture and more energy to reinforce the storm. The storm is expected to continue into mid-day tomorrow.

If we stay in the heavy snow all night it will bring 10″ plus totals, and still coming hot n heavy after sunrise. If the storm moves south 50 miles we might get off the hook at 3-4″, but that isn’t looking good at the moment.

At 8:30pm I just measured 3 1/2″. By my estimation it was falling at close to 2″ an hour while I did my update.

I will update again with totals in the wee hours and/or in the morning.

Have a good night and thank you for visiting!

RJB